


Define Normal

by Tinybit92



Category: RWBY
Genre: F/F, Internalized Homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-02
Updated: 2015-01-02
Packaged: 2018-03-04 22:09:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3092651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tinybit92/pseuds/Tinybit92
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Weiss starts to panic when she realizes she may not be nearly as heterosexual as she thought she was. To help calm her down, Yang tells a story from hers and Ruby's childhood about something their mom once told them. Normalcy is not as hard to define as some people try to make it.</p><p>Implied White Rose, small amount of implied Bumbleby. Internalized homophobia is addressed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Define Normal

**Author's Note:**

> Here, take this, I'm done with it. This fic has been sitting on my computer for over a month because I can't decide if I like it or not and I don't know what to do with it. Just take it, and I hope you like it.

"Hey, Blake?" Yang called from her position on the dorm room floor where she played with a paddleball.

Blake hummed a response from her bed without looking up from the book she was reading.

"If you could eat a Grimm before it's corpse disappeared, what do you think they would taste like?"

"I don't know. It'd probably be poisonous, given that they _do_ disintegrate."

"Oh man, do you think they have, like, acid flesh?"

Before she could get a reply, the door flew open and Weiss dashed inside, slamming the door behind her and pressing against it in a panic. The room's other two occupants stared at her in confusion, Yang's broken concentration causing the rubber ball to miss it's paddle and hit her in the face.

"Ow." Yang rubbed at her eye and sat up.

"I have a problem!" Weiss shouted, continuing to look like a deer in the headlights as she pressed herself flat against the door.

After a beat of awkward silence, Blake piped up. "Would you like to tell us what it is?"

Weiss's face turned rapidly to a deep shade of red as she appeared to be fighting with herself to speak. Finally, in one rushed breath, she blurted, "I think I'm attracted to Ruby."

There was an even longer beat of silence this time.

"Weiss, are you asking permission to bang my sister?"

"Yang, I swear to god, will you just be serious for five minutes." The heiress was clearly in no mood for these antics.

"Well, if that's not what you're asking, then I don't really see what the problem is."

"You don't- How can you-" Weiss looked absolutely baffled, before balling her hands into fists and near shouting, "Ruby's a girl!"

"Yeah, so?" Yang glanced to Blake for support in this bizarre conversation. The Faunus shrugged.

"So?" The pale-haired girl at the door stared at her teammates as though they were aliens. "What do you mean, so?" She tugged at her roots in apparent frustration. "So, it's not normal! It's wrong! I shouldn't be having these kinds of feelings for her."

"Whoa, back the hell up." Yang pulled herself up from the floor in an instant, walking over to the panicked and frustrated girl and placing a hand on her shoulder. "I don't know what kind of weird, homophobic environment you grew up in, but there is nothing wrong with you liking other girls."

"There's not?" Weiss looked simultaneously relieved and terrified at this information. This moment of minor relief crumbled very quickly though. "But- But what if she finds out? What if I can't make it stop? What if-"

Yang interrupts her before she can start hyperventilating. "It's fine, Weiss. This is totally normal."

"How are you so calm about this!?" Weiss snapped at her, looking near tears in her panicked irritation.

Seeing the look on her friends' face, the blonde wrapped an arm around her and began to lead her towards her bed. "Okay, take few deep breaths and come sit down, snowflake. It's story time."

"I- wha-" Weiss attempted to protest, but the taller girl shushed her and demonstrated the sort of deep breaths she was talking about. She continued to stare in utter confusion as she was pushed into a sitting position, but she made an attempt to follow instructions and took a shaky breath.

"There you go," Yang said as she sat next to her. "Now keep that up and listen for me, okay?"

The still baffled girl nodded and continued her shaking breaths, seeming to at least be grateful for a distraction.

"Okay, so back when Ruby was a teeny little toddler, she and I were watching a movie with our mom. Some cheesy romcom, with your usual hot chick lead and hunky male love interest. They do one of those doofy scenes where they bump into each other and start apologizing, but then they stare into the others eyes, and the music swells as time slows down and we go close up on hunky man's face. So, Mom makes a joke, saying something about how if she weren't totally in love with our dad she would marry that man in a second. And then Ruby, whose this tiny little thing sprawled on her stomach in front of the screen kicking her feet in the air, says that she wants to marry the lead girl.

"Now there's this weird silence for just a second before mom starts laughing. She smiles at Ruby and asks her why that is. Did she not think the boy was handsome enough? And Ruby says, no, she just doesn't really like boys. Girls are prettier, and someday she wants to marry a pretty lady like the one in the movie. So, now mom's laughing at her little gay baby all sprawled on the carpet and smiling up at this award winning actress, and she just says, 'Okay, Ruby. If you want to marry a pretty lady, then you do that. I'm sure you'll find the prettiest one there is.'

"Ruby just turns around and grins at mom before going back to the movie, happy as can be. But see, I'm a little older and I'm totally confused. I'd been exposed to plenty of media at this point, and in everything I'd ever seen, boys married girls. So, I ask Mom, can she really marry a pretty lady? Can girls marry other girls? I thought boys and girls were supposed to like each other? Mom tells me that of course she can. She says that everyone is different. Some people like boys, some people like girls, and some people even like both. And she says that all of that is normal, because love is normal, and it doesn't discriminate. She seriously blew my little mind. Not only could girls marry other girls, but I was allowed to like both boys _and_ girls? It was just about the greatest thing I'd ever heard."

Yang finished her story and turned to, a now much calmer, Weiss. "So, to answer you're question, the reason I'm so calm about this is because I was told from a very young age that there is nothing wrong with it." She put a hand over one of the still concerned girl's own and looked her in the eyes, speaking in a gentler voice than anyone might have thought possible for the boisterous brawler. "I don't know what you're parents told you growing up, but I promise there is nothing wrong with you. If you like Ruby, then that's great. I say go for it."

Weiss stared at her for minute, looking much less terrified than when she'd come in, but still rather confused. She turned to Blake, whose book had long since been discarded. She didn't even say anything, but the look on her face said she was asking for a second opinion.

Blake smiled at her. "She's right. You're just as normal as anyone else. The people who believe there's something wrong with it are the abnormal ones."

When Weiss speaks, her voice comes out much quieter than either of them have ever heard her. "What if Ruby thinks there's something wrong with me?"

Yang snorts. "Seriously, I just finished telling you that girl has known she was gay since before she knew what that meant."

"But, what if…" Her voice trails off and Yang sighs.

The blonde wraps an arm around her friend and pulls her into a half hug. "Look, I don't expect one conversation is gonna fix whatever self-loathing crap got drilled into you your whole life. But, I want you to know we're on your side, okay?"

The heiress nodded and leaned her head on Yang's shoulder. "Thanks."

"No prob. That's what teammates are for, right? Always there to back you up when you need them."

There was a long moment where the room was very quiet again, but in a much more relaxed way than before. Eventually though, Yang got a thoughtful look on her face and spoke up again.

"Hey, Weiss? I think I know something that might help you feel better."

The girl in question lifted her head and turned to her expectantly.

"I think you should go talk to Ruby about this." For just a second, the terror finds it's way back to Weiss's face, but Yang quickly clarifies before she can go into panic mode. "I don't mean that you should go confess your love to her, or whatever!" She placed her hands in front of her in a placating gesture before going on. "What I mean is, I think you should go find Ruby, tell her that you think you might be attracted to girls, and that that scares you. I think she'll really be able to help you through this."

Yang stands up and gently pulls the heiress with her. "Do you know where Ruby is right now?"

She kicked at the floor nervously. "Last I saw her, she was going to the library to study for Oobleck's test."

"Alright," Yang gently lead her to the door. "I want you to trust me on this one. Go talk to Ruby. I think you'll be really glad you did."

Weiss nodded and placed a nervous hand on the doorknob. "Okay. You're right. I…" She turned around and looked to her teammates. "Thank you. Both of you." Her friends just smiled at her and nodded. She took a deep breath and turned back to the door with her eyes closed. "Okay. I can do this. I am Weiss Schnee. I can do anything." She straightened her back, trying, and largely succeeding, to regain her usual regal composure. She opened her eyes, turned the doorknob, and waltzed out of the room like a girl on a mission.

As the door clicked shut behind her, Yang sighed and shook her head. She walked over and plopped herself down on the edge of Blake's bed. "Poor thing. Go figure her family's a bunch of homophobes on top of the racism."

Blake nodded, obvious disdain for the Schnee legacy on her face. She then turned to her partner with a gentle smile. "You did good though. I think she really needed that."

"Thanks. I sure hope it helped."

"At the very least, it was a really cute story."

Yang laughed. "It is one of my favorite stories from our childhood. Summer really was the best mom. That one conversation helped both me and Ruby to be totally confident with who we are."

"Yeah, about that." The cat Faunus suddenly wished she'd been wearing her bow, as she felt her ears slick back nervously. "So, you're bi then?"

The blonde brawler blinked for a moment, then grinned and leaned back on the bed, raising an eyebrow suggestively at her partner. "I am indeed. Does that particular fact interest you for some reason?"

Blake quickly retrieved her book and tried to hide her blush behind it under the pretense of resuming her reading. "Nope, not at all."

"Your book's upside down."

What little coverage the book had provided became useless as her whole face turned red.

Yang immediately burst out laughing. "Oh my god, your blush even reaches the tips of your little kitty ears!"

**Author's Note:**

> When I recently came out as bi to some of my friends and family, they were all really accepting about it. So, I haven't personally had to deal with the kind of panic that Weiss goes through here. I had understood already that there was nothing wrong with my sexuality, but I also understand that not everyone feels that way, and that a lot of people have to learn how to accept themselves and redefine what makes someone normal. This was me trying to explore that through fiction, and I hope I did it some small amount of justice.


End file.
